Chapter 32 #2
Flying under the radar of her bosses had always been her best strategy. But now something had drawn his attention. Had it been that ridiculous paper jam award she’d received on Friday? She remembered the grim expression on his face as she’d walked past his table with the plaque in her hand.
Thick burgundy carpet muffled her steps as she entered the outer office.
Mr. Sorensen’s executive assistant looked up from her monitor.
Willow forced a smile. “Good morning. I’m Willow Greene.”
“Ah.” The EA gave her a knowing nod. “Go right in. Mr. Sorensen is expecting you.”
Willow crossed the plush carpet on shaky legs and smoothed her clammy palms down her slacks, trying to make herself look more composed than she felt before she knocked on the door.
“Yes?” a deep, muffled voice drifted through the wood.
She sucked in a deep, steadying breath, then slowly opened the door and entered the corner office.
Mr. Sorensen sat behind his massive desk. A floor-to-ceiling window stretched behind him, showing downtown Portland and the gray sky. He was barely older than her, but his hairline had already begun to recede. His suit screamed money, and his shave was as perfect as the knot on his tie.
“Good morning, Mr. Sorensen,” Willow said, trying hard to keep her tone friendly but professional, without a hint of a tremor. “Ms. Covey said you wanted to see me?”
He nodded. “Have a seat.”
Willow sank onto the low-backed visitor’s chair. Her heart raced. She felt the way she had back in high school, when the principal had called her into his office after she’d fried the second computer in a year.
He leaned back in his executive leather chair, folded his arms behind his head, and studied her, making her sweat. “How long have you been with Kudos now?”
Surely he knew the answer to that question. “Two and a half months.”
“Two and a half months,” he repeated, stroking his clean-shaven chin. “And in that time, you’ve filed about a dozen separate IT tickets.”
Her mouth went dry. So this was about the tech glitches. She pressed her palms to her thighs and fought to quell her rising panic. “I know that sounds like a lot, but if you read IT’s reports, you’ll see that—”
“It is a lot,” he said, his gaze steely. “Maybe your previous employer didn’t think so, but at Kudos, we pride ourselves on hiring tech-savvy people so we can keep our IT team lean and our processes running smoothly.”
Willow dug her nails into her thighs. She wanted to argue and defend herself, but what could she say?
Compared to glitch-free veterans like Barb, she did generate a lot of tickets.
It wouldn’t matter to Mr. Sorensen that she’d resolved three times as many tech issues on her own, without bothering to contact IT, and stayed late nearly every day to make up for lost time.
“I spoke with our CIO and the IT manager, and we’d all like to get to the bottom of this,” Mr. Sorensen continued.
“So, from now on, I want you to document everything—every software crash, every printer jam, every time your computer hiccups. CC me on all correspondence with IT. If there’s a systemic problem, I want to see where the breakdown is. ”
Willow’s head bobbed too fast. “Yes, absolutely. I’ll do that.”
“Good.”
Was that it? Could she go? She shifted her weight forward, ready to jump up and escape the stifling office and his attention.
But he kept studying her across the desk. “I also spoke with Ms. Covey. About you.”
Every muscle in Willow’s body locked up tightly. Did Celeste have any complaints about her, other than the tech issues? She still couldn’t read her immediate supervisor or guess what she thought of her.
“She seems impressed with your resourcefulness and your work ethic,” Mr. Sorensen said.
Oh. Willow slumped against the back of the chair.
“Since she appears to think so highly of you, I’ve decided to give you a chance to prove yourself.”
The tension crept back into Willow’s muscles. What did he want her to do?
“We’ve got an important presentation for a licensing deal with Unicorn Pictures coming up in January,” Mr. Sorensen said. “You’ve probably heard the name.”
Willow nodded. Everyone at Kudos had. Unicorn Pictures was a major film studio, and Kudos was trying to get the exclusive global rights to design, manufacture, and sell a range of toys based on their latest franchise.
“I’ll be presenting the proposal to the guys from Unicorn myself, and I want you to assist me. You’ll help me prepare the presentation deck, gather any material I might need, handle logistics in the room that day, and make sure the AV setup runs without a hitch.”
Oh please no. Of all the things to assign to her, why did it have to be that? She could handle preparing the presentation deck and gathering material, but making her responsible for the tech setup was like asking the family klutz to carry the wedding cake up a flight of stairs.
“I want you in the conference suite an hour early to set up for the presentation and make sure everything’s ready to go.”
“Our conference suite?” She tried to sound calm. “So we’re not flying down to their studio in LA for this?”
“No. They requested to come here. They want to see our design studio in person and get a feel for how we operate. So the entire building will be under a microscope. We need to be at our absolute best to impress them.”
Willow didn’t get it. If he was so desperate to impress the Unicorn Pictures team, why would he assign her of all people to set up the conference room?
When she didn’t say anything, he gave her an imploring look. “Can you do that?”
“Of course,” Willow said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her rising panic. “I won’t let you down. Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Sorensen.”
“Very good. I’ll have my EA send you the details later this week.” He turned back toward his sleek laptop, dismissing her.
On shaky legs, Willow slipped out of the room and fled to the elevator.
The moment the metal doors closed behind her, she slumped against the mirrored wall.
Despite what he’d said, this wasn’t a chance to prove herself. It was her last chance. He was testing her. Either she pulled this off smoothly, or he would get rid of her.
In her mind, she could already see it: the laptop refusing to boot or the PowerPoint presentation freezing mid-slide.
Her stomach churned. This is it. I’ll be fired.
Her days at Kudos would be over, just when she’d finally started to feel like she belonged there—at the company, in Portland, and in Scottie’s life. And now, one spark, one little tech glitch could send it all crashing.